The Tycoon's Misunderstood Bride (9 page)

Out in the street, she walked over to Tim and smiled as he held the door open. “Tim, I’m going to get a job!” and she ducked into the back seat. 

Jason looked out the window and saw the discreet name over the door. “Why are we stopping here?” he asked his driver, Tony who also seconded as a body guard when needed. 

Tony turned in his seat.  “This is the address
Betty
gave me.  She said Emma gave it to her yesterday.”

This wasn’t a hotel, he thought with suspicion.  He dropped the papers back into his folder and laid it beside h
im on the leather seat.  “Fine,”
he growled, unusually irritated for a men about to have sex with a beautiful woman, he thought. 

He walked
through
the doors and was instantly greeted by a man in a laboratory coat.  “Mr. Montenegro?” he asked in hushed tones, pushing his glasses higher up on his no
se.  “I’m Doctor Fiori, the Director
of our facility,” he explained. “If you’ll come this way?”

He started to go down the hallway and turned back to smile at Jason.  “Normally I give these responsibilities to the nurses, but with someone of your stature and responsibilities, I thought it would be more appropriate to escort you through the process myself.”  He stopped at a door.

Jason saw Emma sitting in the hallway and she stood up as soon as she saw him.  Her smile barely reached those lovely eyes and he detected a soft blush as she looked away but he had no idea what was going on. 

“Here we are,” Dr. Fiori was saying as he opened a door.  “You have complete privacy, Mr. Montenegro.  There are specimen cups here,” he said, laying his hand on a metal tray, “and materials if you need any assistance,” he explained, waving to an array of magazines and videos.  “You can deposit your
specimens
here,” and laid his hand on a window, “and there’s a nurse waiting on the other side to collect it.  Your wife will be inseminated as soon as we have your half.  Any questions?”

Jason looked around, his mind about to explode as he realized that Emma hadn’t booked a ritzy hotel room where she could romantically be
impregnated
.  She’d gone to a fertility clinic!  And here he was, being told to….
deposit
his
specimens
!
”

Jason swept past the good doctor and stormed out of the room.  With a swift arm, he grabbed Emma’s hand and pulled her out of the chair where she’d been waiting and dragged her down the hallway. 

“Jason!  What’s going on?  Have you finished already?”

Jason stopped and looked down at his new wife’s clearly confused features, astounded that she didn’t seem to be laughing at him at all.  And she thought it took only those few seconds that he’d been in the room to…provide his sample?  Was she for real?
 

With a growl, he stepped so close she actually had to lean backwards.  “Emma, when we make a baby, we’re damned well not going to do it in a clinic where others are going to fertilize the eggs for us.  We’re going to do it in a bed, with me and you and no one watching or waiting.  It’s going to take a long time and you’re going to enjoy every damn moment of it.  And so will I because I’m going to take my time and make sure I know every part of your body before I make this child with you. And only when you’re screaming out my name with your orgasm, will I then ‘deposit my
specimen
’,” he said with outrage and sarcasm. 

Emma was leaning back, her hand reaching behind her to keep from falling onto the floor and her mouth forming an O of surprise while her eyes stared back at him with stunned shock. 

A few moments later, a resounding sound of applause filled the silence and Jason looked up.  He couldn’t believe it, but he was currently surrounded by about ten women in various stages of pregnancy not to mention several who didn’t appear to be pregnant at all but some had tears streaming down their cheeks.  Nurses, doctors, even some men who didn’t appear to work here and must be the fathers or husband, all were applauding and cheering his outburst. 

Jason b
linked at what a spectacle he’d
made of himself.  With a curse, he grabbed Emma’s hand and pulled her out of the reception area and back into the bright, morning sunshine.  He
didn’t
stop until he was in his limousin
e and he jerked the door closed, ordering Tony to move!

“What are you doing?” Emma demanded, her mind whirling at the outburst in the reception area and the diminishing view of the clinic.  In her mind, access to her mother’s diary was also fading away.  “We have to get pregnant, Jason!  That’s the only way we can find our parents!”

“We’re damn well not getting pregnant in a clinic, Emma!” he growled back.  “To my place, Tony!”

He turned to Emma who looked like she was going to argue and he
raised his hand, demanding her silence.  “Don’t you dare argue with me about this, Emma!”

She sat there in the corner of the limousine, huddled in the corner with her arms closed across her as she tried to tamp down her panic.  If they weren’t doing this in a clinic, that could only mean he wanted to do this the old fashioned way.  And she couldn’t do it.  There wasn’t any way she could have sex with a stranger!  Even if that stranger was her husband
and he was incredibly handsome. 

When the limousine pulled up in front of a lovely stone house surrounded by trees and flowering bushes, Emma was enchanted.  “This is your house?” she asked as she stepped out of the car and walked around, absorbing all of the small details like the gazebo off to the side and the pretty fountain tucked away in a small, almost enclosed enclave.

“The previous owner liked the vegetation,” he said as he walked up the stairs.  “Let’s go, Emma,” he called back to her as she moved to investigate the fountain.  He knew there were some sort of small statues hidden in the bushes which would probably take her hours to look at since some were hidden.  He had an agenda and was ready, eager even, to accomplish the goal.  He didn’t want her lingering on the outside of the house, when he wanted her inside, in his bed. 

It had been just over a week since he’d first met this woman but it felt like longer.  Perhaps it was just the lust she inspired and since it had been interrupting his day, something he had never allowed to happen before, he was furious with her for breaking his concentration.

Emma looked from the bushes where she had just
spotted
something odd, to the man who was watching her closely.  She wanted to ignore the man, knowing that the secret in the bushes was much safer.  But something in his eyes told her not to argue with him. 

“We can’t just….” She struggled as she stood one step above him, still not eye level, but at least not so small and helpless. 
“We can’t just go at it with each other,” she finally said, using a term she’d read in a book a long time ago. 

“We’re not going to ‘just go at it’ as you so quaintly put it,” he replied with sarcasm.  “Come inside and we’ll have some lunch.  My housekeeper has fixed us something to eat.”

Emma
bowed her head and considered ignoring his command.  She didn’t want to go into that house.  She didn’t want to even be near Jason.  He was dangerous material, likely to make her combust and she had too many issues from living with her father
for so many years.  She didn’t
want to be what he said she was.  She wanted to be the good, kind person she felt she was inside, but every time she got near Jason, she wanted to…do things.  She wanted to touch him, to smell his scent and feel his arms around her.  Among other things that she didn’t dare even define in her head. 

“Do I have to carry you, Emma?” he said with soft, implacable authority.

Emma refused to be treated like a child.  Raising her chin with all the self-worth she could muster, she turned and slowly followed him into his lovely house. 

He led her through to the back where his housekeeper explained that she’d set up lunch on the back patio.  As Emma traveled through the house, she tried to peer inside the various rooms, but he was moving too quickly so she didn’t get a good look, just impressions of various rooms.  One contained a very large grand piano and she wondered who played.  She couldn’t see Jason, the masterful, dominating, incredibly masculine man playing an instrument, although he definitely had the fingers for it. 

“What’s wrong?” he demanded when he spun around and caught her blushing. 

Emma startled and looked away.  “Nothing.  Why are you so angry all the time?”

“Perhaps because I’m trapped into this relationship which goes against every fiber of my being.”

“I’m just as trapped.  My father was a bastard who manipulated peoples’ emotions however he could.  So please don’t put me in that category.  I’m different and I don’t appreciate you treating me so disdainfully.”

“You don’t think you’re the same?” he asked as he poured white wine into both of their glasses. 

She shook her head and picked up the glass of water, ignoring the wine he’d just poured for her.  “I don’t believe I am, no.”

“You
don’t
think you’ve manipulated my emotions with your looks that scream innocent when we both know that there’s nothing innocent about you.”

Emma was grateful for the cool water and blinked back the tears that suddenly formed in her eyes.  She would not cry, she told herself sternly.  Her father had made those kinds of accusations to her so often, all of them groundless because of his insane perceptions of her interactions with anyone outside of the house. 

She’d thought she’d escaped.

Now she knew that she’d gone from one kind of hell to another.  This man, this handsome, attractive, powerful and brilliant man also thought of her as a whore. 

“What is it about me that makes people think things like that?” she asked bravely, looking off to the left but not seeing the incredible views of the village and hillsides laid out below. 

“Perhaps it’s the number of men you’ve taken as lovers?”

She laughed, her voice harsh.  “My father spoke to you, didn’t he?”

The housekeeper arrived and placed two plates in front of each of them, but Emma couldn’t eat.  She’d been so worried about this morning and hadn’t had any breakfast, and now, with Jason’s eyes glaring at her and his words breaking through her heart, she couldn’t eat any lunch.  At this rate, she’d be too thin in just a matter of weeks.  She couldn’t afford to miss meals like this, but her stomach rebelled at the idea of eating any kind of food, knowing it would come back up in a more undignified manner. 

“Your father laid out the names of your previous lovers in the letter he left for me after his death.  It was
part of
his final retribution for me beating him, to have you for a wife.”

She blinked, more hurt than she wanted to admit.  “Am I such an awful person?” she asked. 

“That depends,” he replied, fighting to ignore the tears that actually made her eyes sparkle and change color.  “Are you going to sleep with my whole staff?  Or will you be content with me alone?”

“I’ve never slept with anyone,” she replied and set her water glass down.  “But you’re not going to believe me, are you?  So let’s just get this over with, shall we?” she suggested and stood up, not even glancing down at the food in front of her. 

“Get it over with?  What are you trying to pull?” he demanded, looking up at the angry goddess before him. 

“I need a baby.  And I want to have a baby.  Since it has to be yours, then by all means, let’s just do this and see if we can conceive today.  If not, we can always try again next month.” 

Emma couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of her mouth.  She was terrified that he would take her up on the offer but also terrified that he would refuse her offer.  Her father had really cornered both of them, so what choice did they have?

“I’ll just find your room and freshen up,
”
she said when he continued to stare at her in that odd way.